Divorcing Parents Fight; over How Children Are Shown in Social Media

Stacy Thibodeaux was furious when she discovered pictures of her
children on her ex-husbands online dating profile soon after they
divorced.

I went through the roof, Thibodeaux, 45, of St. Peters,
remembers. She confronted her ex, saying it wasnt appropriate to
have their young childrens images on Match.com.

She says he simply blocked her from viewing his profile.

Thibodeaux, who has now been divorced for nearly five years and
has recently remarried, said she realized she could not control what
her ex-husband did with their childrens pictures. But, had it
occurred to her during the divorce, it may have been helpful to have
established some ground rules about their childrens digital exposure
as part of the custody agreement, she said.

That idea of managing a childs online footprint is becoming part
of the conversations during a divorce and even after custody
settlements as social networks become nearly ubiquitous ways of
sharing information about ones life and family.

Social media has become a very big issue in all aspects of
divorce, said Alton Abramowitz, president of the American Academy of
Matrimonial Lawyers. His firm counsels clients to shut down their
social media profiles as soon as they begin considering a divorce.
Parents who post questionable pictures that may potentially
embarrass a child later might find those same pictures and status
updates used against them in court. It speaks to poor parental
judgment, he said.

Even married people can post things about their kids that the
other person may not be happy about, Thibodeaux said. Its harder
when youre divorced because youre already at odds with one another.

St. Louis-area attorney Josh Knight faced a scenario with a
client whose ex-wife wanted to prohibit him from sharing any
information about their children on social networks. Knight said
that, barring special circumstances, he would argue against such a
blanket rule.

In our highly mobile world, it is sometimes the best way to share
photographs and information about children with family members and
friends who do not live in the area. That being said, a party should
be careful to take all possible precautions in order to avoid
messages and images from falling into the hands of someone who was
not designated to receive them, he explained in an email.

Theres certainly room for compromise, says Stephanie Williams,
clinical director with Kids in the Middle, a nonprofit education and
support group in St. Louis for families going through a divorce.

She suggested parents consider parameters, such as different
privacy settings to control who could see certain types of
information, and work toward an agreement on the type of content
that can be shared and what is off-limits.

Its really about understanding what the concerns are behind it,
she said.

Thats the approach that Meredith Friedman, of Creve Coeur, took
when she and husband separated five years ago. Her children were 7
and 8 years old at the time, and their father had strong concerns
about their online privacy.

We decided together not to put our kids on Facebook, she said. He
convinced her that it was more of a security issue. Now that their
children are older, they do include some family pictures on their
pages.

texting touted as useful

But, in many cases, Facebook ends up causing more grief for
divorced co-parents than good, Williams said. …

The rest of this article is only available to active members of Questia

Print this page

While we understand printed pages are helpful to our users, this limitation is necessary
to help protect our publishers' copyrighted material and prevent its unlawful distribution.
We are sorry for any inconvenience.